Darrington - The School Board that Doesn't

Preface

The purpose of this page is to make a case that some members of the board should be replaced. In an effort to defeat search engines and keep the matters discussed in this essay local, the author will be anonymous. School board members will be identified only by their first name.

The author will post, with permission, all emailed correspondence, rebuttals and other comments so that townspeople can weigh the issues brought up here for themselves and will revise any statement on this page that are in error. The data in Section I, except where noted, was provided by public records requests to the district; the data in section II is from reports available from the state. Email comments to:

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The Vigilant School Board

The author believes that all school board members start out intending to do well by the town and school. They are not paid for the large number of hours they devote to school business and in a small town there is no particular reason anyone would run for the board as step in a political career. It is the author's belief that most board members allow themselves to be dominated by the superintendent and the public school system's public relations system.

After many years of observation, the author believes that very few people have the temperament required to be an effective board member. A board member should be strong-willed and immune to flattery or be intimidated by the degrees hanging on the wall behind a superintendent's desk. A board member persistently asks questions on all proposed expenditures in the district until he or she gets satisfactory answers that demonstrate the expenditure is in the interest of the taxpayers. He maintains open communications with townspeople and staff and answers all their questions at board meetings and elsewhere. He does not permit the superintendent to cut him off from communication with staffers concerning school business. While the position may be rewarding, the greater part of a member's responsibility is to be a vigilant watchdog for the taxpayers' and students' interests, not for the benefit of the school, it's staff or the public education system.

The author believes that there are many opportunities for people who wish to become involved in the school other than serving on the board. The author suggests that working as volunteers, in the PTA, activism at board meetings and promoting good relations between the school and town are also important and benefit everyone involved with the school.


The Current Board

Many of the comments below apply primarily to Linda, who has been on the board for the last ten years and to a lesser extent Judy, who has been on the board for about six years. The author has never met Tim, who has only been on the board since 2004. The author believes new board member Kay to be insufficiently responsive to outside input, and suggests townspeople urge her to make improvements in this area. Two long-term board members active during the period 1995-2005 recently resigned, and the district has a new superintendent as of this school year (2005-2006). This is an excellent opportunity to place new members on the board who are more vigilant than the old board and correct some of the problems described here.

The author wishes to see Linda removed from the board in the next election cycle, and suggest that a more energetic replacement should be found for Judy, likewise Kay, unless both begin to display initiative, and that Tim be urged to be more aggressive in protecting the townspeople's interests. There is apparently an open position which has not been filled.


Board Meeting Minutes

The author has a few suggestions for opening the board to the public. The board, according to statements made to the author by a number of townspeople, has developed a fortress mentality and is closed to input by townspeople. Here is one example: in the autumn of 2004, the school began receiving a number of public records requests related to the issues described here. At this time, the district destroyed all the audio recordings of school board meetings, retaining only the transcribed versions as mandated by law. True or not, that is indicative of a fortress mentality to the author.

The author recommends:

1. The board meeting be recorded as is done now, the original recording to be held in perpetuity by the district.

2. A digital copy of the recording be made at the district, and the original sent to a professional transcription service.
At present, a district staffer transcribes the recording. There is a conflict of interest in having a district staffer perform this task, and, in the event of litigation, the district may be accused of falsifying the transcript, particularly without the original audio recording. This also places the transcribing staffer in a hazardous legal position, which the district should avoid for ethical reasons.

3. The district should immediately convert its digital recording to MP3 format, and place it on the district web page so that townspeople may download and listen to the audio of the meeting. The transcript should be posted on the district web page when it is received by the school.


Section I School Management

School Network

During the period 1993-1995, a group of townspeople spent a great deal of time developing a "Technology Plan" for the district. To get it started, a one-time bond of $100,000 was passed to purchase and install computers at the school. As will be shown below, the district almost entirely abandoned this plan by 1996 without resistance from the board. The author believes that if the district had implemented this plan, the district would have the best school network and related classes for a district of this size in the state for at least the past seven or eight years. The author would like to see this plan updated and a school board put in place that insists that it be implemented entirely.

In 1995 the voters agreed to have the M&O tax hiked by $80,000 per year, the money to go exclusively to the district network and "Technology" in general, as a continuing source of funding for supplies, old computer replacement, etc. During the course of the campaign to convince the voters that this was a worthwhile expense, the school network administrator at that time was approached by an old logger, who warned him, "Watch out for these school people. They'll take the money and not a dollar will be spent where they promise." This is precisely what happened the following year, apparently with Linda's agreement and others who are no longer on the board.

Linda was one of the main proponents of the tax hike, and her consent to have this money diverted from the purpose which the public was told it would be spent is, in the author's opinion, sufficient reason to remove her from the board. This tax hike now totals in the vicinity of $700,000 over the last nine years, and probably considerably more, as the actual tax hike was expressed as a percentage of the existing levy, and this percentage would result in larger actual taxes as taxpayers' residences have been assessed at higher values.

When a staffer pointed out to Linda that this move was a breach of promise to the voters, her response was, "Talk to the superintendent." So much for Linda's independence from the superintendent, and her indifference to the recommendations of an experienced staffer as well as the wishes of the townspeople in agreeing to the tax hike.

The author recommends that the tax hike be eliminated and the local M&O tax rate reduced by that amount or the funds dedicated to "Technology" as originally intended. But do not trust the district to spend money as it claims during the M&O levy campaigns and do not trust Linda to spend any district funds as she promises.

As Federal Title I grant funds are withdrawn from the district over the next few years, the district will plead poverty and shut down the school network. The M&O tax raise was partly designed to provide reliable, continuous funding to the school network to avoid the unpredictable hazards of the grant process. The author urges the townspeople to insist that their original intent in agreeing to this tax hike should be carried out or revoked.

The district, with the aid of an enormous, unsolicited and unexpected Federal Title 1 grant, in 1996, immediately began purchasing large numbers of computers, eventually totaling in the vicinity of at least $400,000, and saturating the district with approximately three times as many computers per students as other districts. (In early 1999 the district had about 225 computers; the total probably eventually reached about 300), far in excess of the district's ability to maintain them, and against the advice of the then-network administrator. The author's opinion is that these purchases were made to enhance the then-superintendent's resume, and invites readers to contemplate how much better the money could have been spent for the benefit of the school and town.

The district should adhere to the logistics and budget standards found in industry networks. All board members have demonstrated they are either indifferent to these standards or perhaps incapable of understanding them. A board of which a majority of members are experienced businessmen, engineers and craftsmen may be the only solution to this problem.

In April 2002 the district purchased a software package called a "packet-sniffer" at a cost of $8,000. The purpose of the software is to make it easy to examine the contents of data moving across the network, particularly web-based email, online chats and documents. The administration and anyone else with access to the software can now easily read all private correspondence sent or received by students and staff accessed when using the network. There is no legal requirement to install software of this kind, and it's installation may also raise legal issues adversely affecting the district. This is a school, not a peepshow.

The author recommends that the district immediately uninstall the packet-sniffer by contracting with a professional network consultant to perform this task. District administration personnel should not be trusted. The contractor should also confirm that all desktops are configured so that encryption of passwords is in effect. Individual staffers would be wise to investigate independent means to determine if they are being monitored, and townspeople should insist on determining who initiated this purchase, who approved it and to what use it has been put to. Linda and Judy were on the board at the time the package was purchased. The author believes they should have refused to fund the purchase.


Legal Bills

Most townspeople are familiar with the events surrounding the attempted dismissal of a school employee several years ago. The district, rightly or wrongly, lost the case in arbitration. The total amount paid to the plaintiff was approximately $30,000. During this period, and for about an additional two years, there then followed a series of legal disputes between the plaintiff and district which resulted in the district expending approximately $114,000 in legal fees.

The board has not been forthright with the taxpayers regarding this case. For example, when pressed by a taxpayer at a board meeting in 2005, the board refused to discuss the case since it was "under litigation". The case has apparently come to a close. Disputes of this kind are routinely resolved within a few months at a fraction of the expense the district expended, making this case unusual enough that the author recommends the district contract for the equivalent of a "legal auditor" to determine if this case was handled in a satisfactory manner by the district and the results be weighed for or against board members Linda, Judy and Tim at election time.


Superintendent Salary

The new superintendent in Darrington is the accidental beneficiary of what is discussed here. The author urges the town to insist upon honoring it's agreement with him, and maintain the present superintendent salary level for as long as he chooses to work in the district.

In 1995, the superintendent position received a salary of about $72,000 per year. Beginning a year or two later, thanks to the generosity of the board, by 2002, in a period of seven years this salary had been raised to about $106,500 per year in a series of spectacular pay raises.

The board apparently used a salary report called "SIRS" generated within the educational establishment as the basis to justify these pay raises, which the author has not read. Finding this series of pay raises unusual, the author did an informal survey of superintendent salaries in Washington state about a year ago. The author cross-referenced data found on district web-pages and real-estate listings (superintendent name and student enrollment) with publicly available state employee salary listings found at www.lbloom.net. There are four or five districts of approximately similar student enrollment in the state. In those districts, superintendents receive a salary in the vicinity of $86,000 per year. Judging by this informal survey, the board saddled the taxpayers with an unnecessary $20,000 expense per year. The author suggests the board could have done its own survey as above or through other available sources to determine if the pay raises were necessary. It is the author's opinion that this is an example of the board's subservience to the superintendent during the period 1995-2002. Linda was on the board during this entire period; Judy toward the end of it. Alert readers will also notice that this series of pay raises began at precisely the time the M&O "Technology" tax hike was diverted from it's original intent.


Third-Party Contracting to Staffers

The author recommends that the board implement a staffer sub-contracting policy as follows: 1) No subcontracts shall be let to staffers if a business in town can perform the work at reasonable cost. 2) All subcontracts to staffers shall be approved in writing by the superintendent and board in any amount in excess of a moderate amount. 3) No staffer shall sub-contract with any other company doing business with the district, except with the approval of the superintendent and board. And 4) subcontracts to staffers shall not be allowed if in the judgment of the board allowing those contracts has the appearance of favoritism to staffers or which may place the school in disrepute in the eyes of the townspeople.


Employee Resignations

At least three, and possibly more excellent employees, including managers, left the district over management differences which in the author's opinion would not have occurred if the district had been well-run over the last eight years or so. In no case the author investigated did any school board member ask the employees why they were leaving the district.


Summary

It is the author's opinion that the cases above are of a nature serious enough to demonstrate the board has been subservient to the superintendent and has not satisfactorily managed the district.


Section 2: District Finances

This section is provided to educate townspeople on school finances and related matters. The figures cited are taken from a ten year summary the author extracted from the state's yearly OSPI F-195 reports. The original reports can be downloaded from the following website:

http://www.k12.wa.us/safs/data/reportformatter.asp

Below, a few observations on what the summary of the F-195 reports reveal, in no particular order other than possible interest to townspeople:

For the last five years, the district has had a decline in enrollment from a high of about 610 students to today's 540 or so students, a decrease of between ten and fifteen percent. There are probably several reasons for this, the chief being the severe economic conditions in the county as Boeing Everett decreased operations by sixty or more percent, requiring families to leave town in search of work.

Beginning in 2001, there was a sharp spike upward in local tax revenues to the district and spiking upward again in 2003. Guaged by eye, the extra amount received by the district over this period may be in the vicinity of $80,000 per year, or perhaps 15%. The author is also informed by some residents that their property taxes have nearly doubled in the last six years. Perhaps the school board could have considered reducing the M&O by an equivalent percentage for the sake of the taxpayers.

Special Education enrollment has nearly doubled in the last ten years, up to 15% of the student body. This is consistent with national figures. The author believes that this program should be a chief concern of board members, even if not directly in their scope of power. This is particularly important as the public school system has shown no hesitation to require many of these students to take powerful drugs, for which a vigilant board may in some cases act as a brake to this trend, at least in this district.

The student to teacher ratio is unusually low according to the F-195 data. In fact, classes generally have 20 or more students, so the author cannot account for the discrepancy in the reports and observations at the school. The teacher count has roughly kept pace with the reduction in enrollment. Rumors at school suggested that one or two teacher layoffs were made to finance the litigation described in Section I above. This may be true, but the F-195 reports suggest that teacher reductions would have occurred in any case.

Totaling all revenues and dividing by enrollment shows the cost per student increased from $7200 in 1996 to $9900 in 2003, or 27%. Probably much of this increase can be attributed to the Federal Title 1 grant. When this grant money is withdrawn over the next year or so, cost per student will decline proportionately.

The superintendent position salary increased by 32%. Teachers did not fare badly, their average income increasing 23%, and classified staff increasing 20%, during a period in which the private sector in the county was more-or-less devastated. The average salaries for teachers and classified staff as reported by the F-195 reports are unusually high. Actual teacher and classified data is public, and can be found at www.lbloom.net, and show the usual wide distribution of salaries to be expected. Very few teachers actually earn what the averages suggest, so the author cannot account for the discrepancy. With classified staff, most are low-pay teacher aides, and very few make the average pay. There have been complaints by full-time classified staff that they are the least-favored group for raises, and the F-195 data bears this out to some degree. Overall, the author's opinion is that the board has done a poor job in managing pay increases in the district, resulting in staff demoralization, the favoritism displayed for the superintendent being the most serious case, and these raises are probably overly generous in comparison to the private sector in the same period of time.


Section III: The Public Education System

The public education system has a well-earned reputation of being one of the chief instruments for promoting a number of social causes repugnant to a large part of the public, a few of which fall into the categories of promotion of homosexuality, anti-second-amendment efforts, promotion of state power and corresponding dissolution of family. This, in addition to violence in many districts, but not present in Darrington, substantially account for the enormous growth in home-schooling, there being at least thirty home-schoolers even in Darrington.

The author recommends that townspeople stay informed of the progress of these causes in the public school system, and with the aid of a vigilant board, refuse to countenance them at this school so far as possible. The townspeople are fortunate to have a staff at the school which generally reflects their own beliefs, and will not countenance certain programs promoted by the public school hierarchy. But be warned, the public school people will bend, as the following examples show.

Take a look at what is going on in other parts of the country:

http://www.parentsrightscoalition.org/Horror_Stories.htm

The author has no affiliation with the above organization, has not examined the contents of the rest of the site and selected it only as a convenient link to the article. The article and variants are also posted on many other websites and in print media.

Do a web search on "Sandpoint Idaho" and "Gay-Straight Alliance Club" for an example in a district that is rural and only twice as large as Darrington. Lest Massachusetts or Idaho seem remote from Darrington, the author is aware of one large district in Puget Sound which recently selected two proto-lesbians as Homecoming Queen and Queen.

The author as provided these as examples of what is occurring outside Darrington, but does not doubt that programs like these, and others, will be implemented in the Darrington schools unless blocked by the board and townspeople.

There may be some residents in town who are familiar with the old "Sadie Hawkins" dance common in the south, where girls invite boys to the dance and dress as hayseeds for the event. Some years ago the author was pleased to see a "Sadie Hawkins" event at the school; however, it was "Sadie Hawkins" in name only; the actual event was no longer a dance, but a day in which male high school students cross-dressed and put on some sort of skit. The author was informed by a long-time staffer that the school, despite the town's southern heritage, had no tradition of a Sadie Hawkins dance, but that this new ritual was introduced into this and other public schools in the middle 1980's. A similar event was introduced at about the same time, where girls in the 13-14 year age-range are encouraged to wear bathrobes to school for a day, an event that has no tradition and is at best in bad taste.

The author is of the opinion that a vigilant board would have refused both of these events, instead substituting the true "Sadie Hawkins" dance, and perhaps a day where girls who wish to participate dress in an attractive and traditional way, such as 50's style clothing or perhaps 60's tie-dye, all of which can be obtained at moderate cost if mothers and grandmothers do not already have the clothing.

The author suggests that the curriculum and book purchases be reviewed by the board within the limit of it's power, and that any bias or repression of alternate views be neutralized by insisting that counter views be made available to students.

From time to time schools invite outside speakers to speak to classes. The author suggests that speakers and their organizations at the Darrington district be approved by the board prior to their being allowed to speak. If the subject is political, the board should insist that a counter-speaker be invited so that students may weigh the arguments of each side for themselves.

The intent of this section is to demonstrate with a few examples that the board plays an infinitely more important role in the school and town than simple management of the district. The author suggests that a vigilant board carefully review all current events sponsored by the school for suitability to this town and it's students, and that it be aware of the political climate that promotes causes repugnant to many townspeople and take measures which reflect their sensibilities.


Conclusion

This essay has focused on what the author regards as problem areas, and for brevity, has not covered the many aspects of the school which are performed satisfactorily, and in some areas, in a superior manner. As this essay is a public document, the author apologizes to readers for being vague in some areas and has omitted a number of issues during this time period which generally support the recommendations of the author.

The author believes that the cases listed in Section I are serious enough to remove Linda from the board. Perhaps townspeople will also include Judy, as she has been on the board for about half the period of time covered, particularly the latter stages of the superintendent pay raises, the litigation, purchase of a packet-sniffer and two of the employee resignations described above. The author suggests Tim and Kay become more aggressive in their roles on the board. But the author has chosen to make these issues public after all board members failed to respond to them in a satisfactory manner.

The public school system is highly monolithic; the townspeople, preoccupied with their own pursuits, operate at a disadvantage of resources when attempting to resolve issues like the ones described in this essay, much less the more general environment described in the last section. However, a vigilant and aggressive board that reflects the sensibilities of the townspeople and students and a large and active group of townspeople is more than capable of eliminated the majority of problems discussed in this essay.